GMAC OnStar Insurance Deal: "no Additional Data is Gathered or Used for Any Purpose Other Than to Help Manage Transportation Costs"
According to their press release, GMAC Insurance wants to "help you cut costs on the road." To that end, they offer the same five gas-saving tips offered by every auto-related PR firm in the entire country. Oh, if you've got an inactive OnStar button in your car (ah, but is it REALLY inactive?), you can also reduce your motoring expenses by signing-up for their Low-Mileage Discount. Providing you live in one of 34 non-paranoid, insurance industry-dominated states, doing so earns you some time money off for good behavior not driving. Here's how it works: "With the subscriber's permission, the odometer reading from his or her monthly OnStar Vehicle Diagnostics email is forwarded to GMAC Insurance. Based on those readings, the company will adjust the premium using discount tiers corresponding to miles driven. Information sent from OnStar to GMAC Insurance pertains solely to mileage, and no additional data is gathered or used for any purpose other than to help manage transportation costs. Customers who drive more than 15,000 miles per year are not penalized. In fact, all OnStar customers receive an insurance discount simply for having an active OnStar subscription." So, unlike OnStar, GMAC Insurance is promising NOT to provide law enforcement officials with OnStar data; you know, if you're suspected of a crime or in the event of a crash. And if you believe that, GM's got a high mileage hybrid SUV they'd like to sell you.
More by Robert Farago
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Actually, paying for insurance by the mile makes insane amounts of sense. Onstar is not needed for this at all though. Simply send in your odometer monthly should do. Maybe a verification at a dealership on a yearly basis could serve as a deterent to cheats.
This smacks of luddism. If somebody wants to track/stalk you, they don't need OnStar to do it. Just ask the sad sap who had his Geico coverage spontaneously cancelled after they discovered that he autocrosses. Besides, we're all safe drivers who have no need for the ludicrious amounts of horsepower that car manufacturers provide, so there shouldn't be any reason why anybody would be tracking us.
...Another ad in the paper said, "We guarantee our furniture, and we stand behind it for six months!"... ... That's the reason I left Soviet Union... I don't want people behind my furniture...
While I was considering buying an Astra, OnStar was one of the "negatives" that steered me elsewhere.